It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
I sympathized with this post from yesterday. We adopted Butter last June, and had a few ups and downs while getting to know eachother. But she's been a good, good girl for months now. She's crated when we're away, and is on a regular potty and walks schedule.
Then last night... she peed right on my bed, right in front of me! My husband isn't super fond of dogs in the bed (it is the cat's territory as well) and he'd just started allowing her up there for short periods of time while I'm reading etc.
I've come to realize that 90% of "dog training" is actually people/owner training (we're first time owners, so I read a lot of books!). I was initially totally heartbroken and mortified. I thought she'd gone insane. But our diligent people training kicked in and we didn't yell at her or get too excited. Especial kudos to Mr. Kallisti ^_^ he calmly removed her from the bed and took her outside on the leash.
For work reasons, I'm not usually a late night person. I'm in bed by 10pm and get up at 5am. So Butter's hours are about the same. But last night I worked late and we went out for dinner. When we got home it was already 9:30pm when I did her after dinner potty trip. We then watched a movie while playing with her inside, and she had her usual frequent trips to the water bowl. When I finally went to get ready for bed, I didn't realize it was almost 12:30am, way past our usual bed time. Mr. Kallisti came in to take her for her final potty trip. Butter is a rescue, and has near-pathological submission issues (we work very hard on calmness with her). Sometimes giving a command, even gently, that she's not ready to do (like get down off the fluffy down comforter) will send her into a submissive spin. Occasionally she wets (but doesn't squat). But this is always merely drops. Last night she started the submissive crawl and roll over, but ended in a full on prodigious pee squat.
So, the end of my long, long pee saga is that while it was awful that she (seemingly inexplicably) peed on our bed, at least I think we know why. I can usually find reasons, even little things that we did out of schedule that may lead to such accidents. I consulted "Dog Training for Dummies" after the covers all went in the washer. After "accidents are accidents are accidents" mentioned putting water bowls up after 8pm so they can make it through the night. I never considered this since she's usually kenneled by 9-9:30. She prolly got a bit submissive, and then couldn't control the taps, as it were.
Or maybe I'm totally wrong and she peed on my bed because she hates me! ~_^
